Is it good to have your head in the cloud?

This post has been provoked by Graham Dodge's excellent piece "Maybe the Cloud IS useful after all..." over on "Foundation and Empire"; which itself links to a piece on InfoWorld entitled "Run IT as a business -- why that's a train wreck waiting to happen".

Graham's piece blogs his Damascine moment regarding the place of Cloud Computing in the overall IT mix; so I thought I would offer my view as well.

But first a (long) diversion

In the 20+ years since I became an IT consultant in 1987, I have passed through IT departments of all sizes. I have also seen many ways of organizing IT departments and models of how those departments relate to the rest of the business. Whilst I have seen many instances where IT is an integral part of the company, I have to say that I have also seen many companies where there is an almost total disconnect between the IT department and the rest of the business.

In most cases this is down to the personalities involved and the problem is particularly prevalent in UK companies. The UK suffers from a degree of technophobia that I have rarely seen in other countries. It is exemplified by the "business" person who declaims that he/she knows nothing about technology [ the subtext being that technology and technologists are beneath them and they are proud of their ignorance because it displays superiority].

The consequence of this disconnect is that IT departments are treated as a second class citizens in companies and often don't have a seat at the top table: instead having to plead for their existence through a superior; usually from finance.

This behavior is changing, but it continues to amaze me; given that the continued profitability, or even existence, of many (most?) companies is now dependent on the use of IT.

I think it is fair to say that technology evolves faster than business practice. A corollary of this is that the inhabitants of IT departments see the world changing faster than their business colleagues. This in turn introduces a tension: the technologists can see new ways of doing things, but the business cannot see a good reason why they should change. "There's nothing wrong with the way we are doing it now" is the common response to suggestions about technology refreshes.

The only way to resolve this tension is for the technologists to always express their proposals in a form that talks to and discusses the specific issues that face the business: i.e.

• "what are the company's business objectives in the next planning cycle?";
• "how is success going to be measured?";
• "what business change needs to occur?";
• "what processes need to change?"

Only at this point does technology come in:

• "How can we use technology to effect business change".

This sort of discussion brings IT in to the business and stops it being just a servant of the business. It also changes the conversation from being "what can you do for me today and how cheaply can you do it?" to "how can you enhance my chances of achieving success in the long term"

Which brings us to the role that Cloud Computing can play in companies.

My view is that "The Cloud" might be part of the solution, but on the other hand it might not. It's just technology; and like all technologies: it's not what it does, it's how it benefits your business.